OUR BABIES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVLI, Issue 10, 6 September 1911, Page 59

OUR BABIES.

(By

HYGEIA.)

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Women and Children.

‘‘(ft is wiser to put up a fence (tttftaritqp.of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the boitonu"

IN order to give practical emphasis to an appeal made in this column three years ago for the provision of a free flow of pure outside air through our houses at night we published jhc following list of Popular Fallacies. dn view of the fact that the great majority of bedrooms still remains stuffy Biii insufficiently ventilated, we feel it is our duty to bring the matter again before our leaders in the hope that some jew at least will have the wisdom to tiocept henceforth this the most essential of all health-giving agencies, if not for themselves, at least for the children entrusted to their care.

POPULAR FALLACIES.

That Country Air is Pure and Town Air Foul. City air is unduly abused. Serious contamination is nearly always mainly an indoor condition. The air of bedrooms in the country is often ten times as foul as the open air of the densest cityj indeed, there are very few bedlooms in which the pollution every night floes not greatly exceed that of any ordinary outside air. There is no excuse for this. Air can be kept pure and healthy in the smallest town cottage by providing a sufficient inlet and Outlet, and thus ensuring a free current all night. This would be provided by an ordinary open fireplace and a sash window wide open —not merely opened a few inches—and unobstructed by any Wind or curtain. When the bedroom itself has no fireplace, the door leading out of the bedroom and into the kitchen can be left open. Then if the kitchen Window be shut, the air to supply the chimney must enter through the open Window of the bedroom. If windows tire kept open on both sides of a cottage, and all the doors are kept ajar, fairly good cross ventilation can be established without the aid of a chimney. In the absence of any means of establishing a regular cross current, a window uncovered by blind or curtain and kept wide open top and bottom is the best Substitute. • ,

If people had the slightest appreciation of the added health and happiness Which would result from such simple measures, they would make nothing of Overcoming the trifling objections which fend fo obtrude themselves, such as the need to keep out cats or other intruders, or the need to prevent strong winds blowing on the sleepers. A wide mesh wire netting, which can be bought for » few pence a yard, will keep out intruders, and any handy man can improve a cheap, effective draught screen (see illustrations and text pages 55 to 69, ‘Feeding and Clare of Baby.’’).

That 'Wooden Houses Need No Ventilation. This is often said, but it is absurd. Wooden houses need as much ventilation as any others, and by rights every passage or. hall should have a ventilating shaft at least a foot across, taken right up through the roof and not merely opening into the space under the galvanised iron. That Night Air Is Dangerous. The reverse is the ease. Night air tends to l»e purer than day air. A humorist, has aptly said: ‘'Night air is only dangerous if you keep it bottled up in a room all night!” However, the popular fear of night air is almost universal, and has arisen from the fact that in certain countries it is apt to give rise to ague. This is not really on account of impurity of the air itself, but, as has recently been proved, because it is. infected bv mosquitoes, which convey the disease. That Cold Air is the Essential Cause of Colds. This has been disproved in many ways. (11 Arctic explorers don’t catch cold until they return to stuffy, germ-infested houses. . . (2) Consumptives who have become debilitated by repeated colds find they no longer catch cold ” after a few ■weeks in a sanatorium, where no fires are allowed, aiid where the entire side of a room may be removed sb that (he patient sleeps either on an open balcony or something equivalent to it. These sanatoria are often established in high mountain regions, where the cold is intense. (3) Tender, delicate babies cease to take cold if kept out in the open air as much as possible, and if, when indoors, constant ventilation is maintained by means of an open window and chimney. This is the condition at the Baby Hospital near Dimedin, even in midwinter, though the air in the bedrooms sometimes falls as low as 40deg. Fahr. Of course, every care is exercised to keep the babies out of direct draught, and to ensure that they are adequately covered. Further, sudden changes are never made. It may take a week or more to accustom to pure, cool air a delicate baby, or one who has been previously coddled. 'Colds are really catarrhal fevers due fo rapid growth of germs. Cold is not the essential cause of these fevers, though chilling of the surface predisposes to an attack under certain circumstances. Thus persons who habitually coddle themselves, and live in warm, stuffy rooms, and who fail to take enough exercise. become readily devitalised by f»eing chilled in any way, and in this depressed state their tissues may be unable to repel invasion by hostile germs.

That Airing a Bedroom Overnight Suffices. This fallacy is almost universal. People imagine that if they start with pure air it will not become injuriously fouled in the course of the night. This can be disproved at once by entering such a

bedroom direct from the fresh air an hour or so after the occupant has gone to bed, or a fortiori, when he is about to get up. The room will be found offensively stuffy, and chemical analysis of the air would show it to be loaded with carbonic acid gas and other poisonous matters. A few ascertained facts and figures should satisfy anyone. For the last, half-century it has been recognised that for health each human being

should be supplied with at least 3000 cubic feet of pure fresh outside air per hour, or 24,000 cubic feet in the course of an eight hours’ night. The ordinary 10-foot bedroom has, of course, a capacity of about 1000 cubic, feet, and if no fresh air b e admitted during the night the allowance for one occupant will be only 1000 cubic feet for eight hours, instead of 24,000 ft., Ins proper allowance. Indeed, the capacity of the room makes little difference, the vital question being whether there is a free flow of pure air through it or not. One can secure a sufficieny of fresh air in a ventilated coffin, and one would die under the dome of St. Paul’s if it were sealed! Remember, that a child should have as large a sup-

Ily of fresh air as an adult. If habituated to living in pure air. even a baby will In come intolerant of filth in this direction, as if guided by instinct, just is if van be trained to abhor impurity find lilth in other directions. At three year- of age smh a baby, left to itself, vvd| toddle to a window and open it Tathei than continue in ioul air, in the same way as a « »t will bury its excrement. Infamy is the natural tine for establishing healthy quasi inst imd ive life habits.